One Good Day
by A. Shieldmaid
Summary: Jayne and his best day ever. Contains the sex and the cussing, hence the rating.


**One Good Day**

"It weren't my rutting fault, dong ma? I told you! I was in the grav lift on the way down, minding my own damn business and this woman got on." And they all just sit there--Mal, Wash, Zoe, Kaylee and the Doc--staring like he's just grown another head or some gorram thing. "She just, just..." Jayne pauses, casting about for the exact words to fully explain the delicate nuances of his experience, "Jumped me!"

He feels the weight of their varying amusement in their eyes on him, and it pisses him off. Especially when that smartass Wash looks at him soberly and says, "Attacked. You. So she was an Amazon then?"

Frowning, Jayne picks up his mug, swallows some of the hot dark boar-piss-tasting swill that passes for coffee in this particular corner of the 'verse. "Nah. She was a blonde."

_The grav lift is empty except for Jayne, most of the way down to the hangar bays and a shuttle ride back to Serenity. It's been a simple enough operation--he's just met with some big buyer's middle-man for directions he's supposed to deliver to Mal about a job that should make them some coin without costing them much in blood, sweat or tears for a change. But at level 274 the grav servos shift gears and the lift slows; Jayne swears under his breath. _

_He swears aloud when it stops at level 273 and the doors slide open soundlessly to admit someone. Jayne hopes it isn't some mudfooted goober who wants to yammer on about hog futures or some gorram thing. _

_But the someone who walks through the grav lift doors is a woman; that's a help anyway. Because he has nothing else to look at but the lift walls and she's a whole sight better-looking than those cheap grade interior-construction polymers, Jayne looks at her. _

_She sure is shiny, exactly the kind of woman who'd never speak to a guy like Jayne unless it was to beg him not to bust her rich old hwundan husband's other knee in a debt collection matter. Her hair is loose and the same color as the gold edging on that book Book always seemed to be reading when he ought to be making himself useful elsewhere; it falls in the kind of long thick waves Jayne just knows he could bury his hands in and wrap around them in a more intimate setting. Her face is a lot like Inara's, except she looks totally different; her skin is that smooth-looking, her eyebrows that arched, her lips that full and slicked red. Her eyes are as blue as the atmo of a pristine world; her eyelashes are so long and thick Jayne can actually see them, see the shadows they cast on her high cheekbones. _

_In the galactic gallery of heavenly bodies, the grav lift woman is a masterpiece of endlessly long legs, lean curving waist, and a seriously nice rack. It could be bigger, Jayne supposes, but as far as he's concerned a woman's rack can always be bigger. Hers is fine, regardless. _

_She's dressed better than anyone he's seen in a long while outside of those rich old hwundan debt collections or a really topline whorehouse. She has on genuine stockings (Jayne can tell at a glance the difference between the real ones and the fake spray-ons)--black ones patterned with tiny roses-- and shoes with heels at least as tall as one of Vera's shell casings set on end. Her skirt comes to a thigh level that is both a little indecent and a lot intriguing, and it gleams as deep-dark as The Black itself. Jayne is working out whether the woman is wearing anything under her pale grey blouse (and he's thinking,_ not_) when she turns her head toward him, and catches him checking her out. _

_Because she's busted him fair and there isn't much else he can do, Jayne stares her down. _

_But instead of getting all twitchy and turning away again, or pushing the display icon to stop the lift to get off at the next level, or anything else he expects her to do, the woman meets his eyes and starts checking him out just like she busted him doing! Cocking her head to one side, the woman begins at his feet and her cool blue gaze travels Jayne like a dozen pairs of very friendly hands. Up and down and up again until she's looking at his face once more. _

_She turns to face him full on. "Are we alone?"_

"Oh come on, Jayne--'Are we alone?'" Zoe snorts, nearly spitting out a mouthful of tea. "You've been loading up on that historical romance feed off the Cortex again, haven't you?"

Jayne slams his hand down on the tabletop angrily. Bad enough they don't believe him, but to poke fun, too... "Ta ma de! Bad enough you don't believe me--you gotta poke fun, too? That's what she rutting said! Now do you want to hear the rest or not?"

"Uh, not." Simon gets up and leaves the table, his face a study in offended sensibilities. Jayne watches him go and wonders if her case of the hots for the doctor makes Kaylee a full-on lesbian, what with the doc being such a complete woman and all.

Once the doctor has gone, Jayne stares around the table at the remaining members of his audience. "It's what she said," he grumbles. When no one challenges him, he goes on, "'Are we...'".

"_...Alone?" She asks him. _

_Jayne frowns at her and then looks pointedly around the grav lift, completely empty except for the two of them. Her fingernails are long and painted a dark shade of red that made him think of some ripe cherries he tasted once. When she smiles, she shows teeth that are remarkably white and even. "I guess so," she answers her own question. Her voice is low, smooth, like blue music; Jayne wants to wear that voice next to his skin. For an hour or two, anyway. _

_It's like she knows, or something. Because before he can even change his expression, let alone think of something to say, the woman takes a step toward him. Another. And then she's standing right in front of him. _

_Her head comes to his chin and she smells like that perfumed smoke coming out of Inara's shuttle sometimes; her eyes are bold on his. Jayne reads her proximity, her expression, easily enough--he's a man, after all--and what he reads has him caught between just grabbing her, or taking a very long step backward. But he's standing in a corner already, so there isn't going to be any backing up unless she moves first. _

_Wouldn't you just know it--she_ does _move. Closer. And then she raises a hand, long-fingered, smooth, tipped with those cherry-red nails Jayne can already feel sliding down the skin of his back, and lays it flat against his chest. "You're a big one," she notes. _

_Ma Cobb's son Jayne is no fool; Jayne locks the woman's bold gaze with one of his own. "All over."_

_That makes her pause, smile--but not in a funny ha-ha at-him kind of way. Her smile is the smile of Kaylee contemplating a whole bowl of those fresh strawberries she can't get enough of. _

"_Better and better," the woman says, but not to Jayne so much as to herself, it seems, and before he can guess at what she means by it, the woman hits the "Emergency Stop" icon on the display panel. Then there she is, sinking to her knees in front of him. _

_Jayne blinks, gazes down at the top of her gleaming gold head, watches her tight skirt creep further up the pale thighs showing through her stockings, considers those shiny red nails attached to those fine hands working at the front of his pants now. She frees him, in his most favorite sense of the word, and then runs her hands up the back of his thighs and holds on. _

_When he is in her mouth, when she starts to eat him like a great big mouthful of sucking-candy, Jayne is grateful for the corner walls behind him because the steady goes right out of his knees. He rests there, lets his head fall back and closes his eyes, listens to the sounds of his heart beating faster and wonders exactly what he did right today. _

_She's good. In no time flat the woman lets Jayne know just how fast she could make him a very happy man, then keeps him on a threshold where he's perfectly glad to remain. Few of the many pros he knows--very few of them--are this good. It'd surely be worth the expense every time, if they were. _

_And that makes him think of something at least as important as the meal she is making of him, and he pulls her head away from him with a handful of her hair. Jayne can't remember the last time he wept without death involved somehow, but it's touch and go when her mouth leaves him. _

"_What's this about, anyhow?" He asks her when those blue eyes turn up to look at him through strands of her mussed hair. Her mouth is red with smeared lipstick, her face is flushed, her hair feels like expensive cloth around his fingers. Jayne has to close his eyes and think of solid-cargo shipping-weight conversions for a moment to keep from dragging her right back to work by that handful of hair. "I ain't paying you, if that's what you're after." _

_The woman blinks slowly and turns those red, smeared, full lips into a grin so completely slutty that for a second Jayne almost doesn't need her mouth to reach full burn. "It's nothing like that," she says, low, sweet, "Now shut up," and bends to him again. _

_Jayne loosens his fingers in her hair, wraps it around his hand instead--three, four,-five times, he counts-- and leans back against the wall, closing his eyes again. She's..._

"Gorram amazing." Jayne shakes his head at the wonder of it, even now, and looks around the table to see the effect his words have had on those seated around it. They look every bit as shocked, though not necessarily as thrilled, as he had been.

Kayle blinks first and rises. "Eeyeew." Her nose is powerfully cute when she wrinkles it like that, but Jayne wouldn't ever tell her so. Not sober, anyhow. "I have to...Oh. Just eeyeeew." Without looking back, she leaves the room entirely. Maybe to find the doctor for a nice long session of Doing Nothing with each other.

"In the grav lift? Seriously, Jayne. She just... uh...right there in the grav lift?" Wash is shaking his head, but not like he doesn't believe Jayne but like he wants to and just can't wrap his brain around it yet.

"Are you deaf?" Jayne reaches for another piece of bread, frowning. "I _said_, in the gorram grav lift. It was..."

_Incredible. How long she spends on her knees Jayne doesn't know and couldn't care less; he's having such an amazing day. But before the end comes--the end he's already been close to more times than he can count and is looking forward to very, very much--the woman moves away from him. For a brief and painful moment Jayne considers her hair wrapped around his hand, considers using it to remind her that she's started something that isn't finished yet, but decides against it. Jayne's done a lot of things, some he's willing to admit to and some he's not, but forcing a woman isn't either of them. Besides--he doesn't know who--_what_--she is, and he's willing to bet solid cash money these grav lifts are security-vidded. He lets her go. _

_She stands up again in front of him, and damned if she doesn't go to kiss his mouth. Jayne turns his head away. _

_It surprises her, he can see it in the way her eyes get wide for a second, and then she shrugs. Instead, she rises on her toes to whisper something in his ear. Jayne bends to hear it, and when he does, everything that's hard about him gets immediately harder. "Sure." _

_Because there isn't a whole lot more to say after that, let alone any kind of established formalities to observe that he's aware of, Jayne takes the woman by the hips and hikes her skirt up around her waist to find she's not wearing anything under it except the garter belt holding up her stockings. He turns, backs her into the corner where she braces herself against the walls and climbs him like a tree, hooking an arm around his neck and curving a stockinged leg up around his waist. She fumbles with his pants with her free hand until they fall around Jayne's ankles and then she proves her manual dexterity is as impressive as her balance. _

_It doesn't take much to be in her, just a sense of direction and a slow inexorable thrust (he wasn't fooling about the big) and then she's holding him as hot and tight as her mouth. When he fetches up belly-to-belly deep, the pleased sound she makes low in her throat makes him freeze lest all bets be off and him, too. But Jayne isn't some new-buck kid; he takes a deep breath and wonders where he left those thermo-coil spanners last week until the moment passes. Then he sets about giving her what she asked him for. _

_It's fast apparent he can't do her too hard; she takes what he throws at her just as rough as he throws it, clawing at his back, his ass, and biting his shoulders until he doesn't know whether to cuff her one or grind her even harder between himself and the wall. She isn't a screamer, which is a little disappointing, but she talks dirty and that's good too. Now and again Jayne takes up one of her suggestions just to watch her arch, feel her ripple, beneath his hands. _

_He gets it done for her, too--it's there plain in the way she squints her eyes closed and cries out right before her body goes rigid against, around, him. A whole bunch of times. But except for the space it takes her to gulp a few deep shaking breaths, after, she's right back at him again. _

_So how long they're there in the stalled grav lift Jayne doesn't think to wonder. Why would he? But after a while, he feels with a savvy certainty that something is coming and he's pretty sure it's him. He isn't wrong. _

_When the sweet moment comes, it takes Jayne like a slow-moving large caliber bullet, drives the breath from him, buckles his knees, makes his spine bend backwards, drags back his head. It forces rough sounds up from his chest, through his throat and out between his clenched teeth; it goes on until his skin feels too small to hold it, like it might turn him inside out and melt his bones. On and on. _

_And then it's done and gone. _

_Jayne shakes his head groggily, forces his shaky knees to straighten up and fly right, and glances down at the woman, her arms wound tight around his neck and her legs, his waist; the rest of her is crushed between his heaving-for-breath body and the wall. Her eyes are closed, and for a brief wild second Jayne wonders if maybe he's killed her. But then she opens her eyes and smiles, slow and sweet as a mouthful of real honey. _

_She's a mess--her hair is wild and tangled; her clothes rumpled, undone, stretched, stained and torn in more than a few places; her makeup smeared every which way; her face flushed. Her gaze burns with such a purely dirty satisfaction Jayne thinks maybe he could go at her again a lot sooner than usual. _

_But then he remembers that Mal's waiting for him, and Jayne sighs. _

_Stepping back, out of her, he untangles her legs and sets the woman back on her feet. When she stops swaying and finds her footing again, he lets go of her, bends to retrieve his pants and use them, and then his shirt. When he turns back to the woman, she's straightened her clothes as much as they still can be straightened, and is standing there watching him. _

_He supposes he should say something; for all her exceptional whorish skills, she isn't a whore. He comes back to stand in front of her. "I...uh... I have to go. Someone's waiting for me." _

"_Of course." She reaches out, runs her fingertips down Jayne's arm. He can see the marks one of his hands has left around her pale wrist like a bracelet made of shadows. "This has been..." _

"_Sure has," he agrees, and then reaches to the grav lift panel, disengages the stop command, hears the whine of the serv motors starting to move once more. It's always awkward, this moment, wherever it takes place--in a bed, an alley, a backroom or even, it would seem, a grav lift. It's why he prefers this moment to take place in the dark. _

"_I know this isn't..." She begins, "It's not..." She laughs, but Jayne doesn't hear anything funny in it. "We won't..." The woman falls silent and shakes her head. _

_Cursing himself for making eye contact again and finding her looking so miserable, Jayne reaches out, touches her hair one more time, brushes it out of her eyes. "No. We won't," he tells her soberly. But he isn't a jerk about it. _

_The woman catches his hand as he draws it away. "Please--what's your name?" _

_And looking down at her standing there in those ruined clothes with that dirty, dirty smile on her face, Jayne realizes he can smell her on his skin. And he can smell himself on her, too. Thinking of her mouth on him, the silk of her skin beneath his hands, the cool flow of her hair over him, Jayne considers a moment and tells her..._

"'Abraham Lebronski?' Are you shitting me? You told her your name was Abraham Lebronski?" Wash is doing something Jayne is pretty sure could accurately be called 'chortling'.

"Well, yeah," Jayne fires back. "I ain't going to tell her my given name after something like that, now, am I?"

"_Abraham," she repeats, smiling as she dabs at the corners of her mouth where her smeared lipstick has caught the worst, "I want to thank you. Very, very much. More than I..." _

_But before the woman can finish telling him more than what, or Jayne can say anything at all, the grav lift slows again. This time it stops at level 15; Jayne swears softly, and then a whole lot louder when the doors slide apart and four armed goons in security uniforms rush in. They're followed by some rich-dressed ferret-faced old guy glaring bullets at the woman, and two other suited guys._

Mal doesn't change expression; he just shakes his head while his eyes say he's suddenly paying very much closer attention. Wash is speechless, gaping, and Jayne's not even sure the pilot's still breathing. Zoe, though, she's crossed her arms over her chest and is leaning back in her chair, frowning at Jayne like she's considering coming across the table for him. "You'd better say right quick that they weren't Feds, Jayne," she warns.

"Right quick," Mal agrees, unblinking.

Jayne sighs heavily. "If you'd just let me tell the gorram story…"

_The four goons motion Jayne against the wall; he goes, but only because their drawn guns say he has to. _

"_Jien huo," the old fart is hissing at the woman so vehemently spit flies between his teeth and the veins are standing out of his neck. He looks to Jayne like an old turkey buzzard about to explode. "On security vid, no less!" _

_That perks Jayne right up--these grav lifts are wired for vid! "Real time?" He asks one of the goons surrounding him. _

"_Oh, yeah," the guy answers him with a big smile. "And streaming to five different private level security checkpoints."_

"Good to know," Mal muses, looking over at Zoe who nods, and then he frowns at Jayne. "A completely moot point if your… adventure…burns the bridge between us and our buyer there, but otherwise good to know."

"Damn straight," Jaye agrees. "And I did not."

_Jayne leans over to the goon, whispers, "Any chance I could get a copy?" _

_The goon grins knowingly, and if Jayne isn't completely off-chart, with some admiration. But as he opens his mouth to answer, the old buzzard shoots them both a glare that would've blown them both into splattered red wall-stain if it's been a firearm. _

_"Who the hell are you?" The buzzard demands. _

_To his complete amazement, before Jayne can lie the woman does it for him. "Randall McTavish," she blurts hurriedly, drawing the buzzard's attention back to herself, "And this isn't his doing. Leave him alone." _

_The buzzard swells up even further and he practically screams at the woman, "The 'doing' I saw certainly looked like his, you…" _

_The big suit takes the opportunity to lean over to the goons and say softly, " Check Mr. McTavish out, local and fed." One of the goons nods, leaves the little knot surrounding Jayne to go to the grav lift's security screen. Then the big suit straightens and addresses the old hwundan. "Sir, this lift's security vid was taken offline before we entered, and will remain offline for the next…" he consults his chron, "…Ten minutes. With all due respect, sir, we are, for all intents and purposes, completely alone here." _

_The old fart says nothing for a long moment; there is no sound but his furious heavy breathing. Then Jayne sees the light go on behind his eyes. _

"_You set me up!" The old guy says it softly, wonderingly, as he looks around at them all; his gaze settles on the woman like he can already feel her blood on his hands, like imagining it drying there dark and sticky gives him a whole pantsful of happy. He suddenly looks a lot like someone whose knees Jayne might enjoy busting just for gos se and grins. "You can't begin to imagine how sorry you are going to be for--" _

"_You broke every letter of our troth contract before the signatures were dry, and you know it." The woman cuts the old buzzard off. "You can't hold me to it and beat me with it at the same time any longer." She smiles; Jayne has seen starving wild dogs bare their fangs with more warmth, " I knew you'd come after me if I was gone five minutes more than you allowed, and that you'd involve security." The woman smoothes her hair with those cherry-red fingernails that probably still have shreds of Jayne's skin caught under them. It makes Jayne a little nostalgic. "So I upped the stakes and made sure my attorneys were along for the ride. This time you're going to be the sorry one." _

"Duh liou mahng," Wash whispers under his breath, grinning now and heading for full smile. "That's… brilliant." He glances at Zoe, who frowns back until Wash adds quickly, "Drastic and more than a little… uh… sick, but brilliant."

_Jayne grins; he guesses what this is easy enough. And hey, if it involves the grav lift ride he just had_ and_ the opportunity to hose up some rich old fart like this buzzard in a way that can't come back to bite Jayne in the ass, well, then, this is one glorious gorram day indeed! _

_It's interesting at first, following the action, but not for long now that he knows the nature of what's going on; Jayne relegates the parts he's paying attention to to what he can see and hear without working at it, and thinks instead about the previous parts of the lift ride and how he's going to explain it to Mal. And anyone else who'll listen. _

_Talk of settlements and signatures and amenable terms and nondisclosure contracts floats around the grav. Jayne's ears perk once, hearing the two lawyers threatening to leak the security vid to the tabloid streams, explaining to the old fart how bad not letting his wife go after that would be for such a "well-know personage in your field." But ultimately, the bureaucracy leaves Jayne in a particularly ugly mood, especially since the nature of the previous activity in this grav lift was strenuous and enjoyable enough to put him into a well-earned sleep where he stands. He shifts his weight restlessly and clears his throat meaningfully. _

_The old fart whirls at the sound like he'd forgotten Jayne was there and is killing-mad to be reminded, and hisses, "She used you, you know. That's all it was. She_ used _you." _

_Jayne considers that a moment and then grins big and wide. "Yup. Best damned using I've had in a long while, too." He turns his head and winks at the woman, who lifts the corners of her mouth in a quick, tiny, fusion-hot smile. _

_The effect of the exchange on the old bastard is impressive; he turns even a duskier shade of red, and lunges for Jayne. Jayne's pretty okay with the prospect; the only way this day could possibly get even better is if he gets to kick the old buzzard's ass around the grav lift before he goes. But the small suit and one of the goons grab the old fart and hold him back while he sputters and spits foamy cusswords at Jayne like a chain gun sprays ammo. _

_"Get him out of here," the big suit tells the goons guarding Jayne. And just that easy, the goons part, giving Jayne a clear path to the grav lift door. "Mr. McTavish's got nothing on him." _

_Because Jayne isn't an idiot, he goes. _

_But before the doors close between him and the freak show still going on in the grav left, Jayne turns back to the old buzzard because he can, and drawls, "Nothing but your _wife,_ dumbass." _

_The buzzard starts screaming again as the doors slide shut between them. Jayne stands on the other side and marvels at how the sound is still audible as the grav lift starts up, when it's risen seven levels up and climbing. _

_Then, still grinning and whistling a happy tune, Jayne walks across the lobby to catch a different grav lift down to the hangar level and the shuttle back to Serenity. _

"Unbelieveable. Ever-loving un-freaking-believeable." Mal is shaking his head again, only now he's looking down at the table top and smiling.

"What?" Jayne shrugs. "Worked out okay. No harm, no foul, right?"

"Seems so, at any rate," Mal agrees slowly, "We weren't buzzed leaving, and no one followed us out."

"Seriously. Right there--in the grav lift? I mean, she just got all…" Wash looks lost, like someone took a hammer to the balance of his own personal view of the 'verse.

Zoe leans over to tell him softly, "Yes. Right there. In the grav lift. Focus on something else, now, please, honey." She sips her tea thoughtfully. "I wonder who she was."

Mal leans back in his chair and crosses his arms behind his head. "Could've been any number of women, in that place. Talk has it some of the richest folks in these parts own those top five private floors. At least three of 'em are widely acknowledged bastards of a rank and form that'd serve 'em in good stead on any core world in the 'verse."

Wash considers him a moment. and then turns to Jayne with a grin. "Imagine that. Our own Abe Lebronski, rubbing… uh… elbows… with folks like that."

"Don't care who she was," Jayne refuses to take the bait. In fact, he tunes the teasing out and growls into his mug. "She'd've lied like as not, if she'd said. Same as me. I don't give a good rutting damn."

They fall silent, gape at him again, every one of them, Mal, Zoe, Wash.

Jayne doesn't care. Not even when Mal finally notes, dry as Mal can, "And they say chivalry is dead."

Jayne tunes him out again, tunes them all out as they rail him now for being a bit of the heartless bastard himself and not the least bit curious, and drinks his coffee, thinking..

_Jayne_ doesn't _care who she was, but not for reasons they'd ever guess at. _

_See, even at this table with all of 'em yammering about him, even while swallowing this gos se-tasting excuse for an honest working man's drink, Jayne can still feel the touch of her hands, her mouth, her hair, her skin on him--hell, his back still stings where her nails drew blood. He can still recall the sounds she made at the best of it, and the sounds she made_ him _make. He still remembers that sweet stunning bullet slamming through him until for an endless instant Jayne Cobb was made entirely of exquisite agony and light. He remembers how she lied to protect him and how she let him go; he rememebers the rage on the old fart's face as the grav lift doors closed between them. _

_Name or no name, something like that stays with a man. _

_Name or no name, it was his best day ever. _

_So far, anyhow._


End file.
